After Raphael - Dido receiving the Trojans in audience c.1853-76

A pen-and-ink style drawing depicting a formal audience in a classical setting. On the right, Queen Dido sits crowned upon a raised dais, while on the left, a group of men in armor and tunics gesture as they present their case. The composition uses fine cross-hatching to define the figures and the architectural space of the Carthaginian court.

Renaissance Neoplatonists like Cristoforo Landino viewed the Aeneid as a philosophical allegory for the soul's journey; in this context, Dido often represented the 'appetitive' part of the soul or the distractions of the material world that the hero must navigate to reach his divine destiny.